Leopard Pounces

Michael Gartenberg | August 06, 2006, 10:16 PM

Well, the rumors were wrong again and there were no new iPods much less an iPhone (but remember, this is a developer conference), but Apple did unveil to developers and the world the latest release of OS X, called Leopard, scheduled to ship next spring (it will be interesting if Leopard beats Vista to market) along with the new Mac Pro hardware. While the current version of OS X Tiger stacks up well against the un-released next generation of Windows called Vista, Leopard shows us what life will look like in the Vista timeframe and once again, Apple has taken a leap over what Microsoft will deliver.

It's not so much that Leopard looks that different from Tiger, it's what's underneath and some notable enhancements and changes to the end user stuff that make Leopard stand out. Here's what Apple has said so far.
1. 64 Bit Support – This is important as Apple is also preserving the ability to run seamless 32 bit apps along with the 64 bit stuff. Anyone who went through the transition from 16 to 32 bit stuff knows what I'm talking about.
2. Time Machine – This is huge and frankly, to understand how powerful this backup and recovery app is, you have to see it in action. It might be the coolest software interface I've seen in a long time. I can say this about it, when I saw the demo the first time. I smiled. Then I grinned. Then I laughed. Watching the audience during the Steve's keynote, you could see a similar reaction from folks. Backup is hard to do, and even harder to work with, that's why most folks don't bother. Apple has finally taken the onus on itself to provide consumers with the tool they need to protect their digital life. This one alone is worth the price of admission.
3. Complete - OS Features. Yep, Bootcamp, FrontRow, PhotoBooth and all the like will now be a core part of the OS. Excellent!
4. Spaces – Another one that needs to be seen but essentially lets you create logical workspaces out of groups of apps that you like to work with and switch between seamlessly. Of course, Expose works on the spaces as well, making it very easy to customize the way you work
5. Spotlight – Now works across networks to find stuff on other machines. Web is still separate.
6. Core Animation – This is a system level feature but provides powerful OS level animation APIs and tools. Expect to see lots of funky apps taking advantage of this.
7. Universal Access – Not everyone can work with the standard mouse, monitor and keyboard. Apple has done some nice stuff here making the OS more accessible to more folks. Very nice next generation text to speech stuff.
8. Mail – Three new features here. Stationery, Notes and To Dos. Stationery is nice HTML based stuff that looks a lot like the way Pages templates work. Notes and To Dos are excellent. If you're like me and use your inbox as a todo list, this feature set is for you. Best part, I can highlite any part of any email and turn it into a todo item that will then also show up in iCal.
9. Dashboard – The rumors were wrong, no widgets on the desktop. But I can turn any part of any webpage into a dynamic updating widget. No programming required. There's also a full widget development kit called Dashcode as part of the OS. Kids will do some pretty slick stuff here.
10. iChat – This was my favorite feature. Along with some long requested stuff like tabbed chats and invisibility you can now save iChats as recorded video. This is important because you can do some very cool things with iChat. Like share a photo session, or a keynote presentation and even change your background to a static (or video image). This is pretty huge. What it really is going to be good for is to create some really powerful videocasts. Think about it. Want a nice studio background? Done. Want to broadcast remotely or broadcast over a vide feed? How about using the some keynote slides or photos to make a point? iChat's not just about videoconferencing, it's a video studio in a box. Kind of makes me wonder about the next version of iLife…
So what does it all mean? Well, it's good news for Apple and the 4000+ developers that are here in SF. Expect to see some cool apps. More importantly, it gives Apple something for consumers to look forward to in the OS space that isn't Vista. Lots of features like iChat and TimeMachine that simply won't be something you can get in Vista. I'd also expect to see lots of reinforcement over the next few months that any Mac you buy during the holiday season will be Leopard capable. Apple has an interesting opportunity to gain some momentum here. There's also a lot of stuff that Apple didn't talk about just yet, looks like we're going to see more in the weeks and months ahead.